In the South American war against cocaine traffic, Colombia is only one of many strategic theaters where traffickers enjoy a big advantage over anti-drug forces. Even if authorities could win the battle in Colombia, they could still lose the war. New U.S. aid for South America, proposed this week by President Bush, is unlikely by itself to improve bleak prospects for stopping cocaine at its origins.

With three bullets still embedded in his body, Sen. Ernesto Samper is back on the campaign trail, seeking the presidency of Colombia and mentally prepared to die. Samper was struck by 11 shots in March when assassins killed another politician from a rival party while they were chatting at the Bogota airport. Samper had 22 minutes to live, the paramedics calculated. He was brought to the hospital with only six minutes to spare.

February 16, 1990 | DAVID LAUTER and WILLIAM R. LONG, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

President Bush flew here for his much-heralded summit with three Latin American presidents Thursday and proclaimed after about three hours of meetings that the four nations have formed "the first anti-drug cartel." An 11-page "Declaration of Cartagena" signed by Bush and the presidents of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru said that fighting drug traffic requires effective efforts to reduce demand for drugs in consuming countries and to stimulate economic development in producing countries.

With a renewed wave of terror, bombings and death threats, Colombia's fugitive drug lords declared "total and absolute war" on the country's political and business leadership Thursday, ominously targeting even the families of those who resist them. "We prefer a tomb in Colombia to a jail in the United States," the drug lords declared in an inflammatory communique left early Thursday at the site of one of four new bombing targets.

The proposed deployment of Navy warships off Colombia has further strained inter-American relations and complicated the drug war, the Bush Administration acknowledged Tuesday. At the same time, U.S. relations with Peru suffered a strain after U.S. troops surrounded a Peruvian diplomat's residence in Panama City. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said U.S. officials are providing assurances to Latin American leaders that the two incidents do not signal an increased U.S.

Interior Minister Carlos Lemos Simmonds resigned after accusing the government of weakness toward the country's feared cocaine traffickers. Lemos, considered Colombia's toughest anti-drug minister, also cited the failure of President Virgilio Barco Vargas to defend him against accusations that he helped cause Thursday's assassination of leftist presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo by linking Jaramillo to an outlawed Colombian guerrilla group.

Leftist guerrillas kidnaped five mayors of President Virgilio Barco Vargas' political party, a Colombian radio network said Sunday. One mayor was later reported freed. The Caracol radio network reported that an anonymous caller said the Friday kidnapings were the work of the Communist National Liberation Army, which planned to free the prisoners with unspecified messages for the government about the March 13 natiowide election of mayors.

Despite concerns about security, the White House said that President Bush will go to violence-torn Colombia on Feb. 15 for a four-nation summit on illegal drugs. The meeting will be in Cartagena, a region infamous as a haven for cocaine drug lords, who are waging a campaign of violence in retaliation for a crackdown by the government of President Virgilio Barco Vargas.